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Let The European and North American Olympics Winter Games Begin
Where the Rich and Elite Meet to Compete
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020302280.html Where the Rich and Elite Meet to Compete By Paul Farhi Sunday, February 5, 2006; B01 Never mind the usual puffery about what this month's Winter Olympics are all about. Sure, there's the beauty of sports, the spirit of friendly competition, the dedication of great athletes and all that. But the Winter Games are about a few other things as well: elitism, exclusion and the triumph of the world's sporting haves over its have nots. What the Winter Games are not is a truly international sporting competition that brings the best of the world together to compete, as the promotional blather would have you believe. Unlike the widely attended Summer Olympics, the winter version is almost exclusively the preserve of a narrow, generally wealthy, predominantly Caucasian collection of athletes and nations. In fact, I'd suggest that the name of the Winter Games, which start Friday, be changed. They could be more accurately branded "The European and North American Expensive Sports Festival." Throughout most of the Winter Olympics' history, the parade of participating nations has been a short one. Until as recently as 1994, fewer than a third of the planet's countries took part. This year, in Turin, Italy, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) expects delegations from about 85 countries, an all-time high, but still barely 43 percent of the world's total. Even that exaggerates the extent of participation. Many of the nations in the Opening Ceremonies will be represented by tokens, some consisting entirely of sports bureaucrats, not athletes. Ethiopia, a nation of 73 million, will send its first "team" to a Winter Olympics this year -- a single skier. As always, the biggest delegations, and the big winners, will come from a familiar pool. In the history of the winter competition, dating from its inception in 1924, competitors from only six countries -- the Soviet Union/Russia, Germany (East, West and combined), Norway, the United States, Austria and Finland, in that order -- have won almost two-thirds of all the medals awarded. Only 17 countries have ever amassed more than 10 medals during the past 19 winter Olympiads. Only 38 countries have won even one medal. This had turned the Winter Olympics into a remarkably insular competition. The Czech Republic (and Czechoslovakia before it) has won more medals than China, home to about one-fifth of humanity. Norway, a nation with a population smaller than metropolitan Washington, has won three times as many winter medals as the nations of Asia, Latin and South America, Australia and Polynesia, the Middle East and the Caribbean Basin combined. By contrast, the all-time list of summer winners is long and deep, extending to athletes from 143 countries, including such places as Tonga, Paraguay and Burundi. The Summer Games have medal hogs, too, but nothing like winter ones. The top six in the summer -- the United States, the Soviet Union/Russia, Germany, France, Britain and Italy -- have swept up slightly more than half the medals since the modern games started in 1896. Obviously, the climate and terrain in, say, Indonesia or Aruba aren't highly conducive to molding superstar aerial skiers and biathlon champions. But it's not just the presence or absence of snow and ice that determines Winter Olympics success, or even participation. If it were, some of America's best ice skaters and speedskaters wouldn't live and train in Southern California or Florida. If it were, athletes from countries like Peru, Chile, Nepal, Morocco, Afghanistan and Ethiopia -- all blessed with soaring, snow-covered mountains -- would be marching en masse in the Opening Ceremonies and fighting for the medal stand. Instead, the more telling factors are economic. Would-be Winter Olympians need years of training, coaching and competition if they're going to make it to the Games. All of these things require massive sums of money. A bobsled (or bobsleigh, in official IOC-speak) costs about $35,000, to say nothing of what it costs to build an Olympic-caliber bobsled run. A pair of speedskates might be relatively cheap, but how many countries have speedskating rinks? Most nations, even those with plenty of snow and cold, simply can't afford such extravagances. Remember the Jamaican bobsled team? Those lovable underdogs endeared themselves to many with their participation in the 1988 games in Calgary (the four-man team was the subject of the 1993 Disney movie "Cool Runnings" and finished a surprisingly high 14th in 1994). Less well-known is what happened -- or didn't happen -- to the Jamaicans in the 2002 games in Salt Lake City: They didn't show up. The team ran out of funding and had to stay home. Unlike the Winter Games, the Summer Olympics level many of the advantages of national wealth, as well as favorable geography and climate. It takes all the usual things to become a Summer Olympian -- heart, outsized talent and the ability to devote most of your waking hours to your sport -- but the barriers to entry are much lower. Athletes from the poorest African and Caribbean nations have developed into some of the world's greatest athletes with shockingly minimal, or even nonexistent, facilities and equipment. In winter sports, by contrast, the rich keep getting richer. Nations wealthy enough to host a Winter Olympics tend to be those that win most of the medals (17 of the 20 Winter Olympics have been held in Western Europe, Canada or the United States). And hosting the Games tends to ensure future success; the expensive facilities left behind -- the ski jumps, skeleton runs, half-pipes, etc. -- become training grounds for the next generation of Olympians. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, recognized some of these global sporting inequities more than a century ago. De Coubertin objected to the creation of a separate Winter Olympics for many years, dismissing winter sports in 1921 as "the snobbish play of the rich." It wasn't until 1924 -- some 28 years after the first modern Olympics -- that the IOC retroactively recognized something called the "International Week of Winter Sports" in Chamonix, France, as the first Winter Olympics. So why perpetuate an event that could just as easily be contested as a series of disaggregated annual championships? The reason, of course, is money and TV. And here again, it's a small world. The Winter Olympics might collapse were it not for the financial support of American broadcasters and their (mostly) American advertisers. Like the teams themselves, the audience for the Winter Olympics is predominantly North American and European, accounting for about two-thirds of all worldwide viewing during the Salt Lake City Games of 2002, according to the IOC. This is just fine by the Olympics' "worldwide" sponsors -- companies like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Panasonic and Visa -- whose biggest markets are in these places, too. Indeed, with NBC paying about half of all the fees for TV rights the IOC collects, American sponsors and broadcasters call the tune. In 1994, facing sponsor "fatigue" from same-year Summer and Winter Olympics, the IOC decided to stagger the two seasons' Games, so that the Winter Olympics now take place two years after the summer ones. This is not to suggest that Winter Olympians aren't dedicated and superb athletes. They are, of course. But the pool of actual and potential competitors in, say, luge or curling (or skeleton or biathlon or bobsledding or freestyle moguls skiing) is ludicrously small and will probably remain so for years to come. The Winter Olympics simply aren't, and probably can't be, a truly global sporting contest. So please, in the next few weeks, spare us the hokum about the nations of the world joining together in a symbolic celebration of the human spirit. Some nations and some human spirit maybe, but unfortunately, all too precious little. |
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What a completely idiotic and weenie article.
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Mary Malmros wrote:
What a completely idiotic and weenie article. I agree with you - the article is a slam piece. But I also agree that there is something real underlying the article. I think the Winter Olympics could do better at inclusion. There's no excuse for the Jamaicans to be excluded for financial reasons when their Bobsled team was otherwise qualified. Possible the dominant countries could create a financial pool for such cases? Also, while I think it's dangerous for Eddy the Eagle to jump or Sulidan the Slink to run a downhill, and therefore support qualifying results before entry in the Olympics is allowed, a "preliminary" open to all countries could be run in each discipline, following entry qualifications similar to those minor league racing uses (The Tahoe League uses no top 10 finishers in Far West races, I believe. Equivalent might be no FIS points nn?) Maybe the podium from the pre-races could be allowed into the "real" Olympics - certainly the safety issue would have been addressed. Many of the warm countries could round up some ex-pat but still citizens who've been living in winter-countries to be their entries in numerous disciplines, who could afford to enter the preliminaries. Such opportunities would go along way toward inclusion without materially impacting the Winter Games. |
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lal_truckee wrote: Mary Malmros wrote: What a completely idiotic and weenie article. I agree with you - the article is a slam piece. But I also agree that there is something real underlying the article. I think the Winter Olympics could do better at inclusion. There's no excuse for the Jamaicans to be excluded for financial reasons when their Bobsled team was otherwise qualified. Possible the dominant countries could create a financial pool for such cases? Lal, people in North American and European countries are "excluded", as the article calls it, all the time for financial reasons. Except in the few countries like China that maintain a comprehensive state-sponsored development system, an athlete whose family can't foot the bill or otherwise provide the opportunities, isn't going to have the chance. People from the United States don't get some kind of pass because they're from a "wealthy" nation; the ones who can muster the resources get the opportunities, and the ones who can do something with those opportunities get a trip to the Olympics. Everybody else stays home. I also have to ask, what's the point of, for instance, Brazil having an alpine skier in the Olympics? Alpine skiing means nothing in Brazil; it means something in Austria and Norway and parts of the USA. How meaningful is "inclusion" when the thing you're being included in just isn't on your radar scope in the first place? |
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Mary Malmros wrote:
the ones who can muster the resources get the opportunities, and the ones who can do something with those opportunities get a trip to the Olympics. Everybody else stays home. Don't I know it. The Kid had to have coaching, two pairs of racing skis for each discipline to be competitive, and traveled all over the west for FIS races - general pain in the pocketbook. But I also know pro forms, manufacture rep gifts, and a host of other tricks to ease the burden; all unavailable to warm country athletes even when they travel to Winter to build skills. And as soon (or sooner) as you're selected for the c-team organized financial aid kicks in; also unavailable to warm country athletes. My point was it wouldn't hurt in any way, and it might help to expand participation in the Games. In any event, I'd think the automatic TV exposure in warm countries would be a cheap way to expand the ski holiday base for all those destination resorts facing a declining ski population. The warm countries usually do have an affluent elite who would be and obvious potential tourist base. (BTW, you didn't address the Jamaican Bobsled team being excluded by financial difficulties. I miss them - they added some fun to the whole otherwise all to serious Games.) |
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lal_truckee wrote: Mary Malmros wrote: the ones who can muster the resources get the opportunities, and the ones who can do something with those opportunities get a trip to the Olympics. Everybody else stays home. Don't I know it. The Kid had to have coaching, two pairs of racing skis for each discipline to be competitive, and traveled all over the west for FIS races - general pain in the pocketbook. But I also know pro forms, manufacture rep gifts, and a host of other tricks to ease the burden; all unavailable to warm country athletes even when they travel to Winter to build skills. And as soon (or sooner) as you're selected for the c-team organized financial aid kicks in; also unavailable to warm country athletes. Unavailable how? Does the C Team look at your zip code and say, "Oh, sorry, you don't qualify"? My point was it wouldn't hurt in any way, and it might help to expand participation in the Games. _How_??? By picking up kids when they're eight years old (at most) and transporting them to live permanently in a ski town in Cold Country? Because that's how you do it; if there's another way, I'd love to hear you name it. In any event, I'd think the automatic TV exposure in warm countries would be a cheap way to expand the ski holiday base for all those destination resorts facing a declining ski population. The warm countries usually do have an affluent elite who would be and obvious potential tourist base. The "warm country" elite -- AKA the ones who will be first lined up against the wall and shot at the next change of government -- already know plenty about skiing, and are probably spending more time in Gstaad than in their home countries. (BTW, you didn't address the Jamaican Bobsled team being excluded by financial difficulties. I miss them - they added some fun to the whole otherwise all to serious Games.) Bad word choice; saying that they were "excluded" that makes it sound as if some kind of special tax was levied against the Jamaicans. The truth is that they just didn't make the nut. Well, guess what, it ain't just bobsledding and it ain't just the winter games -- the international governing bodies in _every_ Olympic sport leave it up to national federations how they handle their financing. Thus you have some countries, like Canada, where there is some level of public funding for Olympic athletes, and others, like the USA, where the national federations have to come up with the bucks on their own. However it's done, some countries, individually or collectively, decide that they want to fund development in these sports, and some decide that they've got other priorities. While we're on the subject, what do you think about Strobl's competing for Slovenia? He couldn't get a start for Austria, so he shuffled off to some country that didn't have that much of a team, and all of a sudden he's a star. Maybe Picabo Street should make a comeback racing for Namibia -- wouldn't that be deeply meaningful? |
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"lal_truckee" wrote in message t... Mary Malmros wrote: the ones who can muster the resources get the opportunities, and the ones who can do something with those opportunities get a trip to the Olympics. Everybody else stays home. Don't I know it. The Kid had to have coaching, two pairs of racing skis for each discipline to be competitive, and traveled all over the west for FIS races - general pain in the pocketbook. But I also know pro forms, manufacture rep gifts, and a host of other tricks to ease the burden; all unavailable to warm country athletes even when they travel to Winter to build skills. And as soon (or sooner) as you're selected for the c-team organized financial aid kicks in; also unavailable to warm country athletes. My point was it wouldn't hurt in any way, and it might help to expand participation in the Games. In any event, I'd think the automatic TV exposure in warm countries would be a cheap way to expand the ski holiday base for all those destination resorts facing a declining ski population. The warm countries usually do have an affluent elite who would be and obvious potential tourist base. (BTW, you didn't address the Jamaican Bobsled team being excluded by financial difficulties. I miss them - they added some fun to the whole otherwise all to serious Games.) And Eddie the Eagle, and whoever that guy was that finished dead last in the downhill. |
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On Tue, 07 Feb 2006 00:07:05 +0000, lal_truckee wrote:
Mary Malmros wrote: the ones who can muster the resources get the opportunities, and the ones who can do something with those opportunities get a trip to the Olympics. Everybody else stays home. Don't I know it. The Kid had to have coaching, two pairs of racing skis for each discipline to be competitive, and traveled all over the west for FIS races - general pain in the pocketbook. But I also know pro forms, manufacture rep gifts, and a host of other tricks to ease the burden; all unavailable to warm country athletes even when they travel to Winter to build skills. And as soon (or sooner) as you're selected for the c-team organized financial aid kicks in; also unavailable to warm country athletes. Athletes competing for warm countries get equipment deals too, it costs very little for the manufacturers when compared to the goodwill and publicity it generates. Robert Swindells |
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On Mon, 06 Feb 2006 18:01:33 +0000, Mary Malmros wrote:
I also have to ask, what's the point of, for instance, Brazil having an alpine skier in the Olympics? Alpine skiing means nothing in Brazil; it means something in Austria and Norway and parts of the USA. How meaningful is "inclusion" when the thing you're being included in just isn't on your radar scope in the first place? Pick a different country, Brazil has been building up their ski team for several years now. They train in the Alps and Chile and race on the FIS circuit. Robert Swindells |
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Robert Swindells wrote:
On Mon, 06 Feb 2006 18:01:33 +0000, Mary Malmros wrote: I also have to ask, what's the point of, for instance, Brazil having an alpine skier in the Olympics? Alpine skiing means nothing in Brazil; it means something in Austria and Norway and parts of the USA. How meaningful is "inclusion" when the thing you're being included in just isn't on your radar scope in the first place? Pick a different country, Brazil has been building up their ski team for several years now. They train in the Alps and Chile and race on the FIS circuit. And, as I said, it wouldn't hurt to have a Olympics connected "qualifying race" for the "warm country" athletes. Since it would help keep interest up during the development process. (And yes, I know those FIS races ARE the qualifying races, but they are easily overlooked by the average citizen back home [just as they are overlooked by the average citizen even in the US] while a race even pseudo-part of the Olympics would be well publicized back home.) |
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